Firewall sentinels make a regular habit of being in places where they are not supposed to be and bringing things with them that others would prefer they not have. Security has a different character post-Fall than in the 21st century. Due to hyper-abundance, physical security measures such as locks, doors, and walls are less important than in the past to common citizens. People don’t worry about theft as much as in the past because most items can be replaced by a nanofabricator. The items that do tend to engender this type of security are irreplaceable or rare items such as artifacts of Earth.
Post-Fall physical security focuses heavily on surveillance—identifying intruders and tracking them so that they can be interdicted by transhuman or robotic defenders. Surveillance is more effective than in pre-Fall societies because AIs with near-human faculties of pattern recognition and indentured infomorphs can be employed to monitor surveillance data.
The emphasis on surveillance results from the ease with which most material barriers can be breached by high-powered hand weaponry and devices like the covert operations tool. However, physical barriers designed to actively resist intruders by healing themselves or attacking tools used to damage them are used at key points in secure installations. Such barriers are typically very expensive and so are used sparingly.
Transhuman, animal, and infolife defenders are cornerstones of most security systems. The availability of a huge pool of infomorph labor to guard facilities means that someone is always on duty, whether as part of the surveillance system or in a robotic shell.
==Access Control== 
The first step in any security system is simply to enact measure to keep unwanted people out. At a basic level this involves walls, locks, fencing, defensive landscaping, security lighting, and entoptic warnings. Barriers of different sorts present an obstacle that must be cut through or blown apart in order to defeat. Barriers are treated just like other inanimate objects for purposes of attack sand damage.
===Bug Zappers=== 
Bug zappers create minute EMP pulses that are harmless to most electronic equipment and implants but wreak havoc on nanobot swarms, microbugs, and specks. Bug zappers are generally applied to surfaces, and as such they only destroy floating/flying swarms or specks if they land. In areas with heavily shielded electronics, they may be installed to destroy targets in an entire room. A zapper instantly destroys all free-crawling or flying nanobots and specks in a room when it goes off, but transhuman flesh is sufficient to prevent it destroying medichines or other implanted nanobots. Infiltrators trying to gather data in areas protected by zappers generally resort to going around them or trying to plant macroscale devices.
===Electronic Locks=== 
Electronic locks (e-locks) are commonly used as a means of maintaining privacy. They are easy to defeat, however, and so are rarely used in very secure areas. E-locks have several advantages over old-fashioned mechanical locks. Different users can have different authentication methods, they can log all events (entry, exit, failed authentications), and they can be connected (usually hardwired but sometimes encrypted wireless) to security systems for remote control and alarm triggering.
E-locks use one of several authentication systems, or sometimes a combination of systems:
**Biometric:** The lock scans one or more of the user’s biometric prints. Common biometrics include DNA, facial thermographic, fingerprint, gait, hand veins, iris, keystroke, odor, palm, retinal, and voice prints.
**Keypad:** This is an alphanumeric keypad upon which users enter a specific code. Different users can have different codes.
**Token:** Authorized users must carry some sort of physical token that interacts with the lock to open the door, such as a keycard, electronic key, etc.
**Wireless Code:** Users must emit a cryptographic code via near-proximity wireless signal.
Though various technologies exist to defeat each of these systems, there are three methods that work against almost all e-locks. The first is use of a covert operations tool, which infiltrates a lock with nanobots that swarm in and engage the electronic mechanism. The drawback to using a COT is that its use is immediately logged by the e-lock and an alarm is triggered. Some e-locks are equipped with guardian nanoswarms to defeat COTs, but the COT nanobots usually manage to open the lock before the guardians eat them.
The second method is to hack the e-lock. Most e-locks are slaved to a security system, so this often means intruding into the security system and then opening the lock from within. This can be difficult, however, especially if the security system is wirelessly isolated or hardwired. The advantage is that, if done right, all evidence of the lock being opened can be erased.
The third method is to physically open and manipulate the lock. This requires first opening the lock’s case and then triggering the lock mechanism to open the door. Both of these are handled as separate [[Hardware|Hardware: Electronics]] Task Actions with a timeframe of 1 minute each. In addition, most e-locks have anti-tamper circuits that will set off an alarm if the attacker does not achieve an Excellent Success when opening the case.
===Lockbots=== 
The 21st century saw a move from mechanical locks to e-locks and other largely electronic locking mechanisms. These devices worked well for about 50 years, until electronic infiltration capabilities rendered them largely useless. The more recent development of lockbots has more in common with their early mechanical forebears. They are unique, expensive, artisan items.
A typical lockbot is heavily integrated with the portal and barrier it protects. Lockbots usually include an AI or indentured infomorph, self-healing materials (treat as a self-healing barrier), and a swarm of guardian nanobots. A lockbot monitors its surroundings and has visual recognition software that knows what its users and its keys look like ([[Perception]] skill 40). Picking a lockbot is thus incredibly difficult, because it will shut its orifice and not accept a key that doesn’t look right or that comes from an unrecognized user.
Unfamiliar nanobots trying to enter the orifice are targeted and destroyed by the guardian nanobots. Finally, external tools used to harm the portal or the lock will be attacked by fractal appendages extruded from the portal surface or the lock itself. These appendages have a range of 1 meter, attack with skill of 40, and inflict 1d10 +2 DV.
Lockbots are generally immune to being hacked because, for security, they aren’t connected to the mesh. If attacked, however, lockbots are programmed to send out an alarm signal via the mesh.
There are several ways to defeat a lockbot. One is to get a copy or image of the key and then forge a copy (using nanofabrication). Another is to attack the lockbot or the portal it guards with so much force that the lockbot is unable to repair it (usually using ranged weapons, as anything within a meter of a lockbot may be counterattacked). A third is to somehow image the cavity beyond the lockbot’s orifice without the imaging device being destroyed and to then forge the key. All of these are difficult and time-consuming processes.
Some lockbots have the ability to destroy what they’re protecting. For example, lockbots are a common protection for the physical interfaces to hard-wired networks. If the lockbot is compromised, it may, as a last resort, destroy the interface it was protecting.
===Portal Denial System=== 
Installed in corridors or doorways, this is essentially a laser trap device. When an unauthorized person enters the portal denial system’s area, it uses lasers to create a grid of plasma channels that are used to deliver a powerful electric current to the target. This system has both lethal and nonlethal settings.
**Nonlethal:** 1d10 DV + shock
**Lethal:** 2d10 +5 DV
===Self-Healing Barriers=== 
Walls and doors that are able to rapidly repair themselves are sometimes found in high security installations. These barriers are made of materials that automatically expand to “heal” small holes and that are equipped with nanosystems that slowly repair larger amounts of damage. The best of these barriers do no more than slow down the most determined assailants, but in combination with surveillance systems they are a nuisance to invaders and can slow down attempts to flee the scene.
Self-healing barriers heal any single source of damage that is less than 5 points of damage almost immediately, sealing the hole in 1 Action Turn. They will also seal the holes inflicted by a covert operations tool in the same time period.
Additionally, these barriers repair larger themselves at the rate of 1d10 damage per 2 hours; once all damage is fixed any wounds are repaired at the rate of 1 per day. Damage of 3 wounds or more may not be repaired by self-healing.
===Slippery Walls=== 
On planetary surfaces, high walls and fences are still common as a first line of defense against interlopers. Slippery walls are surface treated with the slip chemical, creating a virtually frictionless surface that is exceptionally difficult to climb.
===Wireless Inhibitors=== 
Wireless inhibitors are simple paint jobs or construction materials that block radio signals. They are used to create a contained area in which a wireless network may operate freely without worry that the signals will escape out of the area, where they can be intercepted. Wireless inhibitors allow the convenience of using wireless links within a secure area rather than the clumsier hardwired connections. If an intruder manages to gain access inside the area, however, they can intercept, sniff, and hack wireless devices as normal.
==Detection and Surveillance== 
Should security measures fail to keep an intruder out, the second step is to detect an interloper and track their activity.
===Nanotagging=== 
A lot of post-Fall security centers not around keeping people out of private spaces, but tracking them after they come and go. What little privacy transhumans have, they cherish. Trespassing is a worse offense than theft in many places.
A room protected by a taggant nanoswarm usually has two or more hives, one each at floor and ceiling level (if in gravity; on the opposite side of the room if in microgravity) that generate and recycle nanobots. The taggants emerge from one hive, float through the room, and then return to the other for recharging and reuse. A feed line usually connects the hives so that they can share materials and power. Anyone passing through the room is likely to be dosed with taggant nanobots. Once they lose proximity to the rest of the hive, they hide and periodically broadcast pulsed transmissions meant to give their position to pursuers or investigators. Some may drop off in clusters to form a breadcrumb trail to the interloper.
===Sensors=== 
Any of the various sensors described in [[Gear]] may be deployed within a facility to monitor and record the passage of personnel, both authorized and not. These sensors are typically slaved to the facility’s security network and closely monitored by security AIs, meaning they are vulnerable to hacking and possibly jamming. A few other sensor types deserve mention here:
**Chemical Sniffers:** The [[Personal Augmentations#Chemical%20Sniffer|chem sniffer]] can also be set to detect the carbon dioxide exhaled in transhuman breaths. This is useful for detecting intruding biomorphs in areas that are abandoned/off-limits.
**Electrical Sensors:** Electrical sensors can be set in portals to detect a biomorph’s electromagnetic field in addition to the electrical fields of synthmorphs.
**Heartbeat Sensors:** These sensitive sensors detect the vibration caused by transhuman heart beats. They can even be used to detect the heartbeats of passengers inside a large vehicle.
**Seismic Sensors:** Embedded in flooring, these sensors pick up the pressure and vibration of weight and movement.
===Weapon Scanners=== 
Weapon scanners come in several varieties, including those that look for the rare elements used in extremely destructive weapons such as nukes, those that attempt to locate personal weaponry, and those that look for detection taggants.
Rare element scanners are nearly flawless and are ubiquitous in habitat customs and spaceports. The only way to circumvent them is to find an alternate route into the protected area.
Personal weapon scanners can monitor a specific area, such as a small room or doorway. They use a number of sensing systems to detect and identify weapons and other dangerous objects, including chemical sniffers and radar/terahertz/infrared/x-ray/ultrasound imaging. They can detect the following items and substances:
* Metal used in kinetic weapons, seekers, and flechette weapons
* Devices with onboard hives of metallic nanobots (e.g., covert operations tools, spindles)
* Magnetic elements in plasma guns and railguns
* Propellant from firearms ammunition and seekers (–30 to conceal)
* Chemical fuels used in torch spray weapons (–30 to conceal)
* All explosives and grenades by their chemical particulate emissions (–30 to conceal)
* Poisons and bioagents in flechette weapons
* Any weapon or device larger than palm size (using sound waves and shape recognition)
Characters trying to sneak weapons and gear past personal weapon scanners must make a Palming Test (if concealing) or an Infiltration Test (if somehow maneuvering around without notice). This is opposed by a Perception Test from the character or AI manning the sensor system.
===Wireless Scanning=== 
Some high-security areas will intentionally monitor for wireless radio signals originating within their area as a way of detecting intruders by their communications emissions. These signals can even be used to track the intruder’s location via triangulation and other means (see [[Scanning, Tracking, and Monitoring#Scanning,%20Tracking,%20and%20Monitoring-Physical%20Tracking|Physical Tracking]]).
To bypass wireless detection systems, covert operatives can use line-of-sight laser links for communication or touch-based skinlinks.
==Active Countermeasures== 
When all else fails, active countermeasures may be deployed against intruders. While live transhuman guards are sometimes used, robotic sentries are more common, typically AI-driven synthmorphs such as synths, slitheroids, arachnoids, or reapers, with guardian angels providing air support. Occasionally AI-operated gun emplacements— armored turrets that pop out of walls and ceilings—are also applied. In some circumstances, these shells are teleoperated or even jammed by transhuman security.
Additional countermeasures brought to bear will depend on the facility in question. Some sites will engage in active jamming, to deny the intruders any communication. Others will deploy hostile nanoswarms and even chemical weapons**//__.__//**

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